Sandy and the Sleepless Girl
by Dinogeek
Summary: Sandy is the spirit of dreams; he is certainly aware that there are people out there who have trouble sleeping. But he's never met an insomniac quite this young before. Nor quite this unusual. After all, it's not every day a child sees a man made of golden sand float through her window and smiles at him. Drabble series of indeterminate length.
1. Back Tomorrow

**A/N: So yeah, I'm noticing a depressing lack of Sandy and I have decided to rectify that situation. I'm thinking of doing this as a drabble series and may expand it or may not depending on whether or not anyone cares. So I hope you do. XD Reviews are always welcome and I promise I respond. I also take ideas, so feel free to ask away. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!  
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Sandy had a lot of work to do in one night; and even when one time zone was finished, night was coming to the next and he had to move on. So while it was perfectly understandable that one child might somehow go unnoticed in all that, it still bothered the Guardian and he refused to let it happen.

He was sailing gently over the Midwest United States when it first occurred to him that something was off. There was a gap, a window his dream sand didn't go through. Now that he thought back, he couldn't even remember the last time the sand had gone through that particular window.

Intrigued, he floated down and peered in at the occupant. It was clearly a child, but by all appearances the child was asleep- so why hadn't the dream sand gone through its window? Sandy frowned in confusion and sent a small tendril of dream sand in the child's direction. As the soft golden light filled the room, the child's eyes opened.

Ah, that was it, Sandy realized- the child hadn't been asleep. Just making herself look like she was. Now that she had sat up, Sandy could see that she was a little girl, no older than five, with pale blonde hair and green eyes that widened to twice their size when she saw the dream sand floating through the air.

She reached up tentatively and touched it; a picture formed in the air of a waterfall and a cliff, golden sand particles floating off gently like mist at the bottom. She giggled and grinned widely, her gaze tracking back until she saw Sandy peering in through her window. She blinked a couple of times, seemed to realize that she wasn't dreaming, and then gave him a wide smile.

He smiled back just as broadly and waved to her. She returned the gesture and rolled out of the bed, going over to the window. She stood high on her tiptoes and pushed it open to let Sandy come in. He floated in, careful not to startle her.

"Hi," she whispered. "What's your name?" Sandy flashed an image of someone sleeping over his head, followed by a pile of sand and a man. The girl knitted her eyebrows but then caught his meaning. "Oh, you're the Sandman, aren't you?" He smiled again and nodded. Then an arrow pointed at the girl next to a question mark.

"My name's Samantha McGinnis," she responded. She moved closer to the small Guardian, examining him in the moonlight. Sandy could see that she was extremely small for her age, and thin as a reed. Her nightshirt consisted of an old t-shirt that must have been a men's size large. It gaped at the neck so much it threatened to fall off her shoulders and reached down to her shins.

Sandy made another message over his head, a clock and a sleeping girl. _Why aren't you asleep? _She shrugged. "I don't get to sleep very much. My brain doesn't like letting me so it keeps me awake a lot." Sandy frowned. He'd seen plenty of insomniacs in his time but he'd never before met one so young. Her eyes were ringed with blue and purple that stood out against her pale skin; it was obvious that she needed sleep and wasn't trying to stay up.

Sandy decided to try something. He herded Samantha back to her bed and she climbed in confusedly. "What are you doing?" Sandy made an arrow over his head that pointed to her and then a little form with its eyes closed. "Are you going to put me to sleep?" He nodded, gesturing for her to lie down. She wrapped herself back up in the blanket, green eyes staring attentively at the dream spirit.

Sandy pulled some dream sand out, making it into the most powerful handful he could, and then sprinkled it over Samantha's head. Even with its extra power, it still took her a couple minutes to fall asleep rather than the usual couple of seconds. Sandy smiled and floated back towards the window when a small voice called out behind him,

"Sandy?" He turned and raised his eyebrows. "Will you come back tomorrow night?" He smiled gently at her and nodded. Her eyes finally closed as he shut the window behind him.


	2. Back Tomorrow part 2

**A/N: Yay for part two. :) I hope you enjoy and also I was so, so tempted to make a Metallica joke at the end of the second paragraph. You have no idea. And if you get said joke I'll give you an e-Cookie and 10000 cool points. As always, reviews are welcome, suggestions moreso, and I promise that I'll get chapter three done as soon as I can. ^-^  
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As he had promised, Sandy returned to Samantha's room the following night, greeted eagerly by her in the same baggy t-shirt. "Hi Sandy!" she whispered excitedly. "I gotta be quiet or my parents might wake up." Sandy nodded, smiling, and the two perched on the bed. They talked for a few minutes before Sandy gave her his extra-strong dream sand and left. Once again, she only fell asleep after he'd promised to come back the next night.

Truth be told, Sandy was beginning to grow rather fond of the little girl whose brain seemed so resistant to his powers. He didn't get noticed by humans that often. As a matter of fact, it had been a couple decades since anyone saw him last. The early nineties, if he remembered correctly...

So her company was nice, even if it was a little unorthodox, and Sandy rather found himself looking forward to seeing her the next night. She didn't seem to have much in the way of friends, at least not that she'd mentioned to him, and he sensed that his company was just as important to her as hers was to him.

After he'd finished spreading dreams for the evening he floated back to Samantha's house. The window was already cracked open but Samantha wasn't there to greet him as usual. She lay on her bed, curled up in a ball, having clearly just finished crying. Sandy floated over to her quickly, eyes wide with concern and a question mark flashing over his head.

She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. "'M sorry, Sandy," she whispered. "Didn't want to be upset." Sandy hopped up on the bed next to her, patting her head gently. "I'm so tired," she whispered. "My eyes hurt and I can barely think and I just want to go to sleep but I can't." Tears began to leak down her face again. Sandy sat next to her, smoothing her hair back from her face and trying to think of something he could do for her.

The insomnia was resisting his powers as strongly as it could. Normal dream sand simply wouldn't work on Samantha and even the extra-powerful sand he made especially for her had to fight to achieve its goal. There had to be a way for Sandy to help her fall asleep… And then it occurred to him.

He gave Samantha a bright smile, tugging her hand until she rolled out of bed. "Where are we going?" she asked. He gestured towards the window, to his cloud of dream sand that waited outside. Samantha's tired eyes widened. "Really? I get to ride on your cloud?" Sandy nodded, giving her a reassuring smile.

Tentatively, and with a little bit of a boost from Sandy, she slid up onto her windowsill and out onto the golden cloud, giggling as she sank down a couple of inches into it. She rolled around and peered over the edge at the ground below. "I'm flying!" she exclaimed, eyes wide and mouth gaping open. Sandy hopped up next to her, gently shooing her away from the edge, and slowly moved them higher. Soon they were above the treeline, everything for miles visible to their gaze.

"Is this what you do every night?" Sandy nodded, giving her a proud smile. He summoned some dream sand out of the air and, like she had the first night, she touched it and a waterfall formed. A small human figure splashed at the base before swimming into a cave behind it. Sandy gestured at the human figure with his eyes raised. _You?_ Samantha nodded.

"I'm gonna be an adventurer when I get older. I'm gonna go all over the world and even Antarctica and it's gonna be so awesome! Momma says I have to wait til I'm older, though. She says adventurers need their sleep but I can't sleep but I really want to be an adventurer anyway. Do you think I can do it?" Sandy nodded vigorously.

He and Samantha rode around until her eyes, after a long while, finally got heavy. She curled up next to Sandy with a small smile. "Thanks for letting me come along, Sandy. This is my first adventure ever." Sandy smiled down at her and saw that she was finally asleep. Wrapping her in a protective coating of dream sand, he flew them both back to her house and laid her gently down on the bed. He was just shutting the window when a quiet, muffled voice came from the bed.

"Back t'morrow?" Sandy smiled and nodded once again.


	3. Nightmares

**A/N: *cries* I wanted to update this so bad but then life got in the way and I kept getting distracted and I'm so sorry and I'll never make you wait this long again and here's a cliffhanger for you. So I'd just like to say that everyone who's followed or favorited or reviewed has actually, literally made my day and y'all are awesome. 8D As per usual (speaking of reviews) they are appreciated very greatly, and I do take suggestions, and I will respond. Enjoy, and I'll have part two of this arc up as soon as possible! ^-^**

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Sandy loved his job more than anything; he enjoyed nothing more than to come up with new dreams for the children to have each night, to see the smiles as the sand formed into whatever was best for them. Sandy was an old, old spirit; he had been around for, well, basically as long as people had been. The first thing humans ever did was dream, and he'd been there to see every one of them.

Every now and again, he would run across a human like Samantha, who just couldn't seem to sleep no matter how hard they tried. It broke Sandy's heart to see them struggle- it was his gift to give dreams, after all, and here were people he couldn't seem to be able to give them to.

Worse still, those who missed the dreams were frequently those who ended up with nightmares as Pitch tried endlessly to gain a foothold into power. He took advantage of their struggle, co-opting what sleep they did get, and Sandy was determined not to let that happen to Samantha. So he watched her carefully when she fell asleep, making sure that no Nightmares came to taint her dreams.

But it was inevitable that they would try. Why the Nightmares had singled out Samantha, Sandy didn't know, but it happened one night as he came to see her. She had been sick the last couple of days and more exhausted than usual, and they had used that to their advantage, striking when Sandy was far away so by the time he realized something was wrong the fight was almost over.

He leapt on the back of the nearest Nightmare as it bolted out of Samantha's window and placed a hand on it, causing it to mutate into a dream sand eagle, and then formed his whips, determined not to let anything happen to his little friend. "Sandy!" Samantha yelled from the corner of her room. "Look out!" He turned just in time to deflect a Nightmare, striking it with his whip and turning it into a harmless pile of golden sand.

Suddenly, as though they knew they had no chance any other way, the Nightmares shifted their form, changing into a swirling vortex of black sand that reminded the Guardian of the one he'd fought when Pitch had tried to kill him. A distraction. Suddenly a spike of it lanced out towards Sandy, making him roll to avoid it, and the Nightmares made their move.

He hurled his dream sand everywhere but it was no use. The Nightmares crowded him, swirling in tightly, while another group darted from the window, sweeping Samantha out of the room with them. As if on cue (and it probably was a cue) the rest of the Nightmares whinnied loudly and melted away into the shadows. Sandy knew he had to act fast. He was greeted by the sand eagle when he reached the window, and he put a hand on its beak, commanding it to follow the Nightmares and tell him where Pitch was hiding.

The golden bird swooped off obediently and Sandy flew as fast as he could for the North Pole. He rushed to North, flashing symbols overhead so fast that the burly Russian had to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him to slow down. Soon enough, though, he had gotten his point across. North's face darkened and he sent out the aurora. He stopped and put his large hands on Sandy's small shoulders. "We will get her Back, my friend, that I promise." Sandy nodded, feeling guilty. He should have known that something was wrong, shouldn't have left Samantha on her own.

He sighed silently and pushed the guilt to the back of his mind; it was Pitch's fault and no one else's, and he would make sure that Samantha got back safely to her home, no matter what. Soon the other Guardians were there and Sandy once again explained the situation as fast as he could without his symbols turning into blurs.

"Pitch has taken child," North growled, anger obvious in his voice.

"What?" Tooth gasped. "Where is he? We have to get the child back." Sandy flashed his eagle over his head and then a map.

"Sandy has eagle following Nightmares," North translated. "Soon we will find him and get Samantha back." They shared glances, each as angry as the next. They knew that bad dreams could never be stopped entirely, but when he took a child, Pitch crossed a line that none of them would give him sympathy for. The tension was broken when a golden eagle swept gracefully through the doors to land in front of its master. It touched its beak to Sandy's forehead and then melted away into a glimmer. Now they knew where Pitch was hiding. It was time to go.


End file.
